Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Design of a biomass-heating network with an integrated heat pump: A

simulation-based multi-objective optimization framework☆
Yusheng Chen a, *, Tong Guo b, Josef Kainz a, c, Martin Kriegel b, Matthias Gaderer a
a
TU Munich, Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainability, Schulgasse 16, Straubing 94315, Germany
b
TU Berlin, Hermann-Rietschel-Institut, Straße des 17. Juni 135, Berlin 10623, Germany
c
Energy Technology Department, Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Science, 94315 Straubing, Germany

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• A multi-objective simulation–optimiza­
tion framework based on the genetic
algorithm.
• Additional integration of gasifier
cogeneration to provide power for heat
pumps.
• Simultaneous consideration of system
techno-economic and environmental
aspects.
• Determination of optimal design pa­
rameters combinations and system
configuration.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The integration of compression heat pumps is a promising technology to recover waste heat from exhaust gases of
Heat pump a biomass-based heating network. This requires, however, the consumption of additional electricity, which has a
Biomass heating high emission factor or a high price in many countries. In this context, the integration of small-scale gasifier
Gasifier cogeneration
cogeneration is supposed to be superior technology to provide the necessary power for heat pumps. Nevertheless,
Integration
Optimization
the multiple possibilities of integrating these components imply a high degree of system complexity and,
Genetic algorithm therefore, higher design requirements. To maximize the benefits of the integrated system, development of an
optimization approach at the system level is necessary, so that the connection variants of the heat pump, the
installation of gasifier cogeneration, and their optimal design can be adequately planned. This work introduces a
multi-objective simulation–optimization framework for the design of the proposed integrated system based on
the genetic algorithm, taking into account the complex thermodynamic processes as well as the techno-economic
performances and environmental impacts of the concepts. As a case study, an existing biomass heat network
located in Germany is investigated to test the capabilities of the proposed approach. The analysis of the

☆
The short version of the paper was presented at ICAE2021, Nov 29–Dec 5, 2021. This paper is a substantial extension of the short version of the conference paper.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yusheng.chen@tum.de (Y. Chen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119922
Received 17 May 2022; Received in revised form 22 August 2022; Accepted 30 August 2022
Available online 25 September 2022
0306-2619/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

optimization results demonstrates that it is possible to ensure the effective utilization of biomass resources while
simultaneously achieving the economic and environmental compatibility of the system through an appropriate
optimization design. The proposed simulation–optimization framework allows decision-makers to achieve an
optimal system design under the given constraints and the chosen objectives.

Nomenclature CHP) (kg/kWh)

e CO2 specific CO2 emission (kg/kWh)
P el,gchp power output of the gasifier cogeneration unit (kW) z operation modulation
Q˙ th,gchp heat output of the gasifier cogeneration unit (kW) z max maximal modulation
z min minimal modulation
Q˙ hex heat output of each heat exchanger (kW)
r ef selected refrigerant of the heat pump
Q˙ source,hp heat source for heat pump (kW)
v connection variant of the heat pump
hp
Q˙ from net heat from network for heat pump (kW) w water content (kg/kgwet fuel)
→x vector of the decision variables
Q˙ supply,hp heat output of heat pump (kW)
Q˙ fg,latent recoverable latent heat from the flue gas
Greek symbols
Q˙ cond heat output of the flue gas condenser (kW) σ power to heat ratio of cogeneration
t
Q˙ demand heat load of the heat network at time slot t (kW) f̂ (x)
i normalized objective
ṁ boi,f mass flow of boiler fuel consumption (kg/h) αi non-negative scalar weights of each single objective
ṁ gchp,f mass flow of GCHP fuel consumption (kg/h) function
H boi,f lower heating value of the boiler fuel (kJ/kg) ξel electrical efficiency (%)
H gchp,f lower heating value of the GCHP fuel (kJ/kg) ξgasifier gas conversion efficiency (%)
P el,hp power demand heat pump (kW) ξgchp overall efficiency of the gasifier cogeneration unit (%)
P el,n nominal power capacity of GCHP (kW) ξhex efficiency of heat exchanger
Q n,boi nominal heat capacity of the biomass boiler (kW) ξth thermal efficiency (%)
hex
Tin flue gas inlet temperatures of the heat exchanger (◦ C) ξoverall overall system efficiency (%)
hex
Tout flue gas outlet temperatures of the heat exchanger (◦ C) b binary decision variable
fg λ combustion air ratio
T dew dew point of the flue gas (◦ C)
T hp heat pump supply temperature (◦ C) Abbreviations
t
T air air temperature (◦ C) AP air preheater
T ash ash temperature (◦ C) BIO BOI biomass boiler
T combustion combustion temperature ( C)
◦ CHP combined heat and power
T ex target exhaust gas temperature (◦ C) GCHP gasifier combined heat and power
T sink,hp
sink inlet temperature of the heat pump(◦ C) COND condenser
in
sink,hp COP coefficient of performance
T out sink outlet temperature of the heat pump (◦ C)
net ECO economizer
network supply temperature (◦ C)
GA genetic algorithm
T supply
net
T return network return temperature (◦ C) GWP global warming potential
T surface boiler surface temperature (◦ C) HEX heat exchanger
fo&m,c fixed operation cost factor HP heat pump
fsize sizing factor MINLP mixed-integer non-linear problem
Ic Investment cost of component c (€) MIP mixed-integer programming
c ash&cleaning prices of ash disposal and cleaning (€/MWh) MOO multi-objective optimization
c el prices of electricity (€/kWh) CAPEX capital costs
c i,f prices of fuel i (€/kWh) OPEX operating costs
fCO2 el CO2 emission factor for electricity from the public power O&M operation & maintenance
grid (kg/kWh) TAC total annualized costs
fCO2 i,fuel CO2 emission factor for fuel i (biomass boiler or gasifier LOCE levelized cost of energy production

will continue to rise by 2 ◦ C by the middle of this century, according to

1. Introduction
1.1. Background
In the nineteenth century, the combustion of fossil fuels lit the fire of
the industrial revolution and illuminated the way forward for human
civilization. With the continuous development of human society, the use
of fossil energy resources also caused a dramatic rise in carbon dioxide
emissions [1]. By 2020 it had reached 34.81 billion metric tons [2], and
the global average surface temperature had increased by 1.0 ◦ C [3] and
the present trend [4]. According to the Paris Agreement1 [5], the global
average temperature increase is targeted not to exceed 2 ◦ C by the end of
this century, and to stay below 1.5 ◦ C compared to pre-industrial levels
preferably.
Under the former climate change legislation, the EU (European
Union) had targeted a minimum of a 40 % reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 [6]. As part of the EU Climate
1
Adopted Dec. 12, 2015; entered into force Nov. 4, 2016.

2
Y. Chen et al.
Change Act negotiations, this target has recently been raised to 55 %
under the European Green Deal [7]. In addition, the share of renewable
energies in the EU’s final energy consumption is to be increased to 32 %,
and the EU’s primary energy consumption is to be reduced by 32.5 %
compared to an underlying reference development [8]. By 2050,
greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced by 80 %–95 %compared to
1990 levels [9].
A sustainable energy supply plays a critical role in addressing envi­
ronmental problems and achieving climate targets. According to the
BMUB2, the entire building sector is responsible for 40 % of total energy
consumption for heating, hot water, and lighting and almost 30 percent
of total CO2 emissions [10]. Therefore, improving energy efficiency in
this sector offers considerable potential for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions and primary energy demand [11]. In many cases, synergies
can be exploited to improve the energy efficiency of communities by
constructing or refurbishing district energy systems [12,13]. Because of
its lower environmental impact and flexibility, biomass is well suited to
replace traditional fossil energy as an alternative fuel for sustainable
heating plants [14,15].
By the end of the last century, widespread and intensive construction
of biomass heating networks began to reduce carbon emissions from the
energy generation across Europe [16]. However, since biomass fuel costs
were relatively favorable at that time, little importance was placed on
the efficiency of the conversion of fuel energy to heating energy in the
plant’s designs. As a result, many older biomass heating networks are
currently operated at low efficiency. The average annual conversion
efficiency rate in biomass heating networks from the initial heating
value of the fuel to the final energy supplied to the consumer is currently
between 55 % and 80 % [17]. Due to the limited resource potential and
the rising price of bioenergy [18], it has become increasingly critical to
enhance biomass energy’s efficiency to improve its profitability and
competitiveness [19]. To compensate for the relatively low efficiency of
these heating networks, heat recovery from flue gas is highly recom­
mended [20]. Since biomass fuel has a high moisture content, district
heating with biomass fuel offers a high potential for heat recovery,
especially from latent heat [21].
Many studies have paid attention to latent heat recovery from flue
gases. Shang S et al. [22] proposed a non-contact total heat recovery
system to enhance gas boiler efficiency from flue gas. An annual energy
saving potential of 12.97 % compared to a traditional boiler was proven.
Terhan and Caomakli [23] studied a real case of flue gas condensation in
the natural gas district heating systems of a university. They performed
an economic analysis, demonstrating that this technology could benefit
the system by 0.4 Mio $ per year. Ziembicki et al. [24] introduced a
condensing system dedicated to flue gas cleaning and heat recovery for
liquid fuel combustion. Since conventional metal heat exchangers are
usually susceptible to corrosion, Xiong and Tan et al. [25] investigated a
condensing system experimentally. They used a two-stage fluoroplastic
heat exchanger to study the recovery potential of water and latent heat
from flue gases while overcoming the drawbacks of metal heat ex­
changers in wet flue gases. For many older heating networks, however,
the flue gas condensing systems are facing significant challenges due to
high return temperatures that are often above the dew point of the flue
gas [17].
1.2. Heat recovery with heat pumps
To ensure effective heat recovery, combining a heat pump with a flue
gas condenser has been highlighted in many works and introduced as a
viable solution. Chua et al. [26] reviewed various novel applications of
heat pump systems and indicated that heat pumps could be effectively
integrated into an energy system by utilizing waste heat. Moreover,
2
German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nu­
clear Safety and Consumer Protection.
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Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
Wang et al. [27] proposed a guideline for integrating various heat pump
solutions into industrial processes to achieve low-grade waste heat re­
covery. Depending on the connection variants, different heat pump
integration concepts can also be implemented for district heating.
Based on the previous studies of Marguerite et al. [28] and Chen et al.
[29], there are mainly-two concepts to integrate compression heat
pumps for heat recovery from flue gas into a district heating network. By
cooling either the flue gas in the condenser (flue gas-side) or the network
return (network-side), an integrated heat pump ensures that the flue gas
temperature falls reliably below the dew point temperature, enabling
latent heat to be utilized. The heat gained at a low-temperature level is
raised to a higher temperature level so that it can be used in a local
heating network. Jamil et al. [30] studied the flue gas-side concept to
enhance the efficiency of a gas boiler, which showed an efficiency
improvement of 11.47 %. Shamsi et al. [31] presented a novel waste
heat and water recovery system by combining the organic Rankine cycle
and compression heat pump to maximize the efficiency of a thermal
power plant. For the network-side concept, Zajacs et al. [32] investi­
gated its feasibility on natural gas boilers and evaluated its efficiency
improvement with a simple heat pump model. The previous research
showed that both concepts could be effectively applied in district
heating systems to improve flue gas condenser efficiency. For recovering
heat from biomass fuel, Hebenstreit et al. [33] evaluated a condensation
system with an integrated heat pump combined with a quench system in
a biomass boiler. And Chen et al. [29] conducted a techno-economic
comparison and analysis of both concepts for biomass heating net­
works. Both studies demonstrated that the integration of heat pumps in
biomass heating networks provided more opportunities to improve the
fuel utilization rate, since the potential for heat recovery depends on the
fuel water content, which is typically high in biomass heating networks
[17].
However, the integration of compression heat pumps requires elec­
tricity consumption, the price of which is prohibitive in many European
countries. Vannoni et al. [34] combined a flue gas condenser and heat
pump to recover heat from a combined cycle gas turbine in a district
heating system and demonstrated that this concept would be advanta­
geous only for low electricity price conditions. Furthermore, Averfalk
et al. [35] investigated the operation situation of heat pumps in district
heating systems. It was found that the application of heat pumps in
district heating networks has mainly declined in recent years because
higher electricity prices have made heat pumps lose some of their
competitiveness. In some countries, such as Germany, the integration of
low carbon self-power supply units is probably even imperative due to
the high CO2 factor and price of the electricity for driving heat pumps,
especially when the biomass fuel water content is high.
1.3. Integration of gasifier CHP
Various technologies can be considered for the cogeneration of
electricity [36]. The ideal technology for the studied concepts is the one
that provides the required electrical power reliably with high electrical
efficiency and at the lowest possible complexity and cost. In this context,
a small-scale biomass gasifier combined heat and power (GCHP) unit is
supposed to be a feasible technology to economically and flexibly pro­
vide the necessary power for heat pumps [37]. Integration of such a self-
power generation unit could be a good solution for reducing the amount
of electricity purchased from the grid [38].
In recent years, fixed-bed gasification plants for biomass with power
generation via a combustion engine cogeneration unit have been
developed and realized [39]. Several manufacturers, such as Spanner
Re2 [40], Burkhardt [41], Hargassner [42], Fröling [43], Syncraft [44]
and Urbas [45], have succeeded in developing this gasification tech­
nology, making it commercially available for a large number of appli­
cations. Its power ranges from 10 kWel to about 350 kWel . State of the art
of the electrical efficiency of small gasifier CHP is between 16 and 36 %
[46]. Due to the high power-to-heat ratio, these plants are suitable for
Y. Chen et al.
Fig. 1. Upper: detailed hydraulic circuit diagram of the integrated system; bottom: the difference between the flue gas-side concept and network-side concept.
providing the electrical drive power for the heat pump in the proposed
concept. Another advantage of the integration is that the gasifier CHP
unit can be operated alone or in combination with a heat pump as an
additional baseload heat generator in the existing heating system, in­
dependent of the operation of the biomass boiler.
In the meantime, however, additional integration of CHP units also
implies a high degree of complexity of the overall system and, therefore,
higher design requirements as well as higher initial capital costs. In a
standard biomass heating network without additional components,
system efficiency is inversely correlated to the exhaust gas temperature.
4
Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
However, if other energy-producing equipments such as heat pumps and
cogeneration are integrated, system efficiency will be influenced
simultaneously by several factors. In general, the planning and con­
struction of such an integrated energy system with the integration of
multiple devices is a complex process.
1.4. System optimization
To maximize the benefits of the proposed system, development of an
optimization approach at the system level is necessary to simultaneously
Y. Chen et al.
consider the technical, economic, and environmental constraints as well
as the interactions between the system components. Moreover, the
connection variants of the heat pump, the necessity for integration of the
GCHP, and the various parameter combination possibilities make the
optimization approach a recommended solution for the attainment of
the optimal design of the entire system.
There are two ways to formulate an optimization problem [47]. The
first is to express the optimization objective and boundary conditions in
a linear or non-linear manner, usually depending on the level of
refinement of the modeling, recognized to be mixed-integer program­
ming (MIP). Where mixed integer linear programming (MILP) is known
as state-of-the-art for energy system optimization. This approach is
attractive when a problem can be described as linear, which requires a
trade-off between the level of detail and computational time [48]. The
formulated optimization problem can then be solved by solvers, such as
cbc, glpk, cplex or gurobi [49,50]. However, if complex non-linear
constraints are unavoidable in the formulation, the problem becomes
a mixed-integer non-linear problem (MINLP), and optimization can be
challenging due to its high complexity [51].
As an alternative, the second way is optimization based on a
sequential simulation model that relies on exact formulas for each
component and generally yields more accurate results [52]. This
simulation-based optimization approach is particularly beneficial for
decoupling the modeling task from the optimization task [53]. There­
fore, this approach is widely employed in commercial software (e.g.,
Aspen-HYSYS, TRNSYS) coupled with optimization algorithms. Opti­
mization of this approach is typically performed by heuristic algorithms,
which are derivative-free and suitable for highly complex non-linear
models [54]. Among the most employed heuristic algorithms, the ge­
netic algorithm is a well-known technique inspired by the biological
evolution process [55]. Since it uses evaluation functions to perform fast
search for different combinations of input variables, rather than by
derivation [56], it makes it simple to couple with various nonlinear
complex models.
Research in [29,57,58] has shown that complex thermodynamic
processes, such as combustion, gas cooling and heat pump cycles, must
be considered to explore the potential for heat recovery for the concepts
studied in this work. The design of such heat pump integrated biomass
heating systems are highly complex and nonlinear due to the thermo­
dynamic processes and interconnections of components. From this
perspective, the simulation–optimization approach seems to be the more
suitable approach for the optimization problem in this paper.
1.5. Research objective and novelties
Taking into consideration all the points discussed above, the objec­
tive of this paper is to develop a simulation–optimization framework for
the optimization of biomass heating networks with an integrated heat
pump (HP) and possibly a gasifier combined heat and power (GCHP) for
its self-power supply. To this end, a detailed simulation model for
integration of HP and GCHP into biomass heating networks is first
proposed, which considers thermodynamic processes and interactions
between system components. The developed simulation model will be
combined with the independent genetic optimization algorithm. By
identifying the optimization objectives and the range of the decision
variables to be optimized, a multi-objective optimization of the system
can be performed to find the most optimal system design. In the present
context, the optimization objectives are suggested to be techno-
economic or environmental indicators. The decision variables are the
selectable integer and continuous design parameters of the system
components, such as the operating air ratio of the boiler, the connection
method of the heat pump, and the design of its thermal cycle, as well as
the refrigerant selection. The proposed framework can be used as a
supportive decision-making tool to evaluate the techno-economic and
environmental potentials of heat pump integration into biomass heating
networks, and to optimize the parameter design of different system
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Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
components.
The novelty of this work is addressed in the multi-objective optimi­
zation of a HP and GCHP integrated system based on the heuristic al­
gorithm combined with a model that considers the complex
thermodynamic processes as well as the economic performance and
environmental impacts. Another novelty of this work is the additional
integration of the GCHP into the system to further reduce its CO2
emission.
1.6. Paper organization
This article is organized as follows: an overview of the proposed
integrated energy system is provided in Section 2. Section 3 presents a
detailed description of the proposed optimization framework. Where the
proposed simulation model is presented in Section 3.1. Section 3.2 in­
troduces the definition of the techno-economic as well as environmental
evaluation indicators of the HP-GCHP-integrated biomass heating
network. Furthermore, Section 3.3 presents an overview of the proposed
simulation–optimization framework and mathematical formulation. The
studied case is briefly described in Section 4. Section 5 contains the
optimization results and necessary discussions. Finally, Section 6 offers
the conclusions.
2. System description
In this section, an overview of the concepts of the HP-GCHP-
integrated biomass heating network is introduced. Fig. 1 shows an
example of the hydraulic circuit diagram of the proposed system. The
main components of the studied system in this paper are the biomass
boiler, including the combustion chamber, the air preheater for pre­
heating combustion air, the economizer for heat pre-recovery, the flue
gas condenser for recovery of the latent heat, the heat pump for raising
the temperature of waste heat, and potentially the small scale gasifier
cogeneration unit for the heat pump power supply. Besides, only the
primary heating circuit of the networks, which is located before the
main heat transfer station, is considered. The function of the various
components is determined by their interconnection.
On the gas side, the hot flue gas flows after the boiler at about 180 ◦ C
into the ECO-tower consisting of the air preheater and economizer,
which has a compressed air cleaning unit. After further purification, the
flue gas enters the condenser unit, where the second economizer (ECO2)
and the condenser are located. Quenching spray nozzles are on both the
incoming and outgoing sides. Accumulated quench and condensation
water flows into the sump below the condenser and is separated into
solid and liquid phases in a sedimentation tank. Before the flue gas flows
out of the condenser unit, it is mixed with fresh air in the de-
vaporization unit and then flows out of the stack.
On the water side, two different hydraulic circuits can be realized for
heat pump integration, where the heat pump evaporator can either be
integrated into the flue gas condenser or the network return [28]. In
Fig. 1, when both switches in the hydraulic circuit diagram are at v1, the
diagram represents the flue gas side concept. And when both switches
are converted at v2, it represents the network side concept. It should be
noted that both switches need to be hit at v1 simultaneously or v2
simultaneously, representing two different connections, respectively.
The difference in the connection of the two concepts is pointed out
below the diagram in Fig. 1.
As can be seen from the figure, the heat pump is used as a direct
cooling unit for flue gas in the flue gas-side concept, where the heat
pump evaporator draws heat directly from the flue gas and cools it to the
target exhaust gas temperature. In the network-side concept, in contrast,
the heat pump evaporator is connected to the network return flow. The
return flow should first pass through this “active” heat exchanger to
reach a lower temperature before it flows into the flue gas condenser.
The cooled return enables the extraction of as much heat as possible
from the flue gas. The hydraulic circuit diagram in Fig. 1 also shows that
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Fig. 2. Flow sheet of the system integration process and the mass and energy flows.

the mains return does not have to flow entirely through the heat pump
evaporator. The water flow rate into the evaporator should be as low as
possible to make the required heat pump size as small as possible. The
minimum possible flow rate is determined by the pinch rule, and its
calculation can be found in [29].
In both concepts, the heat absorbed by the evaporator will be raised
to a higher temperature level and released through the heat pump
condenser. In addition to the various ways of connecting the heat pump
evaporator, the heat pump condenser can also be connected in various
variants, to feed the “pumped” heat into the network. In principle, there
are three different ways: The condenser can be connected to the network
mains return, the preheated network return after economizer, or directly
to the network feed flow, depending on the supply temperature of the
heat pump. The simplified diagrams of different variants are shown in
Fig. A1 in Appendix A. Among the three variants, the most employed in
practice would be the first one [28], where the heat from the heat pump
is fed into the network mains return, as shown in Fig. 1. In this case, the
heat pump heats a bypass from the mains return flow, which will be
mixed at the four-way valve with the main return flow, the preheated
flow from ECO2 and the bypass after the boiler. These combined flows
will be fed together to ECO1 and the boiler. The bypass after the boiler is
driven by a boost pump, which increases the flow through the ECO1 and
boiler heat exchangers [59]. The increased flow decreases the risk of
deposits inside the heat exchangers, and compensates for the disad­
vantages of the increased return temperature.
3. Methodology
This section presents the proposed simulation–optimization frame­
work. The framework aims to optimize the design of the various system
components and simultaneously achieve an optimal system taking the
techno-economic and environmental aspects into account. First, an
overview of the simulation model and the detailed integration process of
the system components are presented. Then, some key evaluation in­
dicators used for optimization are defined. Finally, the simulation model
and the evaluation indicators are combined with the genetic algorithm
as an optimization framework. By determining the optimization objec­
tives and the range of decision variables to be optimized, a multi-
objective optimization of the system can be performed to find the
optimal system design.
3.1. Simulation model
The proposed simulation model in this work follows the previous
work by Chen et al. [29,58], in which a python-based program for
integrating heat pumps into biomass heating networks was proposed. A
detailed description of the thermodynamic model and the dynamic
constraints of the system components, like the boiler, economizer, flue
gas condenser and heat pump, can be found in [29]. Where the proposed
simulation model was also validated against the measured historical
data from two real biomass heating networks from the “real lab”. For the
further investigation in this presented work, a GCHP model is incorpo­
rated into the model to provide the necessary power for the heat pump.
In this work, the GCHP is considered as an integrated device that
includes a gas conversion component and a gas engine unit for power
and heat generation [60]. In the biomass gasification unit, the fuel is first
converted into syngas consisting of H2, CO, CO2, H2O, CH4, N2, and
residual coal [61]. The gas conversion efficiency ξgasifier is assumed to be
0.85 in the model, which is state of the art [39]. The syngas subsequently
flows into the gas engine unit and is burnt to generate electricity and

6
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

heat. The mass and energy balances of the gasifier cogeneration unit Heat output of flue gas condenser Q˙ cond will be directly fed
(GCHP) are analogous to the boiler model. The partial load behaviors of into the network. The heat pump draws heat from the mains
gas engine units vary greatly. Electrical, thermal and overall efficiencies return:
depend on various factors such as manufacturer, network temperature,
(2)
hp
modulation z, and most importantly, the rated power P el,n of a CHP. In Q˙ source,hp = Q˙ from net

ref. [62], two general formulas are established for the calculation of
electrical efficiency ξel and thermal efficiency ξth of a gas engine CHP,
To effectively recover the waste heat from the flue gas while
based on a variety of product data from gas engine CHP manufacturers,
still ensuring that the heat pump can be as small as possible,
as seen in Appendix B, which have been proven by Koch et al. [63] to be
the following constraints are applied according to the pinch
applicable to biogas engine cogeneration as well. Based on these equa­
analysis [64]:
tions, partial load behaviors of the GCHP model can also be represented.
( )
A mathematical formulation of the proposed GCHP model can be found Q˙ fg,latent * T net
return − T out
source,hp
(3)
hp
Q˙ from net =
in Appendix B. T fg cond
dew − T out
To give an overview of the entire extended simulation model, a basic
abstraction of the modeling process is provided in Fig. C1 in Appendix C,
where the various main components are first programmed as object- Where Q˙ fg,latent is the recoverable latent heat from the flue
oriented submodules. Depending on the selected concept and input gas. T fgdew and T cond
out indicate the dew point of the flue gas and
parameter, the different submodules can be initialized and connected as the flue gas outlet temperature of the condenser, respectively.
an integrated system for simulation. b. Set technical specification data of heat pump: sink inlet- and
The detailed integration procedure, as well as the mass and energy outlet temperature T sink,hp
, T sink,hp
out as well as the chosen
in
flows of the entire system, are represented in Fig. 2, which can be refrigerant r ef .
summarized below: c. Calculate the required heat pump heat output Q˙ supply,hp and
power demand P el,hp based on the thermodynamic cycle.
1. Initialization
3. Integration of GCHP
For initialization, the network and the boiler should be first
If integrate GCHP:
initialized:
• Set fuel data: fuel type (e.g. pellet) and fuel element composition
i. Network initialization: Input the yearly network demand time gchp
t y i , fuel heating value H f,gchp .
series Q˙ as well as the required network return T net and
demand return
net • Set technical specification data of GCHP: combustion air ratio λ,
supply temperature T supply . minimal and maximal modulation z min , z max ,
ii. Boiler initialization: • Use the result of the heat pump power requirement from step 2.ii.c
a. Set fuel data: biomass type (e.g., wood chips or pellets or self- to quantify the required electricity P el,gchp
defined) and fuel element composition y boii , water content w, • Calculate the empirical electrical efficiency ξel (P el,n , z), thermal
fuel heating value H boi,f . efficiency ξth (P el,n ,z,T net net
return ,T supply ), as well as the thermal output
b. If the Existing boiler is to be replaced:
Q˙ th,gchp and the fuel demand ṁ f,gchp of the GCHP.
Input technical design parameters of boiler: combustion air
Else: The power supply of the heat pump will come from the
ratio λ, combustion temperature T combustion , ash temperature
power grid.
T ash , surface temperature T surface , minimal and maximal
4. Solving system energy balance
modulation z min , z max .
Else:
After initializing the main components and the system configuration
Input boiler historical technical data: boiler capacity
according to the hydraulic circuits, the required energy flows, as well as
Q n,boiboi , combustion air ratio λ, combustion temperature
the required size of different components, will be solved based on the
T combustion , ash temperature T ash , surface temperature
energy balance equations on the network side:
T surface , minimal and maximal modulation z min , z max .
In the flue gas-side concept, the total heat demand of the heat
c. Initialize mass and energy balance of boiler
network will be supplied by the boiler Q˙ bioboi , the economizer Q˙ eco , the
2. Integration of components for heat recovery
i. Integration of heat exchanger: heat pump Q˙ hp and the GCHP Q˙ gchp , which can be expressed as:
a. Initialize heat exchanger: ∑
Q˙ demand = Q˙ i (4)
Define heat exchanger sequences and inlet- and outlet tem­ i∈{bioboi,eco,hp,gchp}
hex hex
peratures of flue gas of each type of heat exchanger Tin , Tout .
In the network-side concept, the heat flows will include heat input
Three variants of the air preheater position can be initialized:
from the boiler, the economizer and the heat pump, as well as the heat
a) Before economizer and flue gas condenser
b) After economizer and before flue gas condenser input from the flue gas condenser Q˙ cond and the heat extraction from the
hp
c) After economizer and flue gas condenser network Q˙ by the heat pump.
fromnet
∑
b. Calculate the inlet- and outlet gas composition y hex,j and the ∑ hp
power output Q˙ hex of each heat exchanger by using the Q˙ demand = Q˙ i − Q˙ from net (5)
calculated flue gas composition from the boiler.
i∈{boi,eco,cond,hp,gchp}

ii. Integration of heat pump: The nominal capacity of the various components corresponds to the
a. Initialize the integration variants maximum required performance of the individual components:
If the heat pump is connected to the flue gas condenser: { }
The heat pump draws heat from the flue gas: Q n,i = fsize *max Q˙ i,t
t∈St
(6)
Q˙ source,hp = Q˙ cond (1) ∀i ∈ {boi, eco, cond, hp, gchp}
Where St denotes the set of time series over a year, and fsize is the size
Else if the heat pump is connected to the mains return: factor in the actual design, which is usually equal to or greater than 1 to

7
Y. Chen et al.
Fig. 3. Working flow of the simulation–optimization framework.
ensure that the maximum output can be guaranteed.
3.2. Evaluation indicators
This section describes some key figures to evaluate the performance
of the whole system. The definition of evaluation indicators is based on
the work of Chen et al. [29]. However, as the concepts are extended,
these indicators’ definitions also need to be redefined.
• Technical indicator
To evaluate the overall energy performance of the concepts, the
overall efficiency for the whole system is defined as follows:
∫
Q˙ demand dt
ξoverall = (
∫ (7)
ṁ f ,boi *H f ,boi + ṁ f ,gchp *H f ,gchp + P el from grid dt
Where the integrations are calculated numerically over a time span
of a year. dt denotes the time interval of the demand time series. This
indicator represents the ratio of annual total energy supply to the
network and the sum of energy inputs into the system. The latter are
Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
comprised by fuel consumption of the boiler ṁ boi,f H boi,f , the fuel con­
sumption of the GCHP ṁ gchp,f H gchp,f and the auxiliary electricity
P el from grid needed from the grid to drive the heat pump due to the
operational limitations of the GCHP.
• Economic indicator
The levelized cost of energy production (lcoe) of the whole system is
chosen as the criterion to evaluate the economic feasibility of the con­
cepts. This criterion indicates the specific cost for covering the total
heating demands of the network and can be expressed as:
TACyear CAPEX year + OPEX year
lcoe = = ∫ (8)
Qyear
demand Q˙ demand dt
Where TACyear represents the total annualized cost of the network,
)
which consist of the annualized capital cost CAPEXyear and the annual
operating cost OPEXyear . These values are determined using the annuity
method, considering the net present value following the German
guideline VDI 2067 [65].
The annualized capital cost CAPEXyear denotes the annualized costs
of the system over its entire service life, whereby re-investments for
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Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Table 1
Overview of the required initialization parameters and decision variables for the optimization.
Initialization parameters Technical parameters of the network t
Q˙ demand , T return , T feed
∑
Technical parameters of fuels fuel type, y i , w, H f
Technical parameters of system components T combustion , T ash , T surface , z min , z max , Tin
hex
, Thex
out , ξhex , ξgasifier
Air temperature and humidity T tair , dtair
Economic parameters Ic , fo&m,c , c i,fuel , c el , c ashdiposal , c cleaning
Environmental parameters fCO2 i,fuel , fCO2 el
Decision variables v, b , λ, T ex , T hp , r ef

prematurely expiring subsystems are considered. The value is obtained specific level. The following introduces the working flow of the frame­
from the initial investment Ic for each component c with the respective work, as well as the mathematical formulation of the optimization
annualization factor ainv,c according to the VDI 2067: problem.
∑
CAPEX year = Ic *ainv,c (9) 3.3.1. Working flow of the framework
Fig. 3 shows the working flow of the optimization framework
c∈{boi,ap,eco,cond,hp,gchp}

The annual operating cost consists of the fixed operating cost coupled with the proposed simulation model. The optimization frame­
OPEXyear year
fix and variable operating cost OPEXvar :
work starts with the initialization of the main components and the
simulation template. The input parameters of the simulation model are
OPEX year = OPEX year year
fix + OPEX var (10) divided into two parts in the optimization framework: initialization
parameters and decision variables.
Where the OPEXyear
fix comes from the annual costs of maintenance,
Initialization parameters refer to data that must be provided in order
staff, emission control, and so on, which can be estimated by a fixed
to find an optimal assignment of values to the decision variables, these
factor fo&m related to the investments:
parameters are declared before the optimization to initialize the com­
∑
OPEX year Ic *fo&m,c ponents. These parameters are usually not freely chosen by the designer,
fix = (11)
c∈{boi,ap,eco,cond,hp,gchp} but are fixed due to customer requirements, technical limitations,
environmental or economic conditions. The required initialization pa­
The OPEXyearvar consist of the performance-related costs, such as the rameters in this work are the technical parameters of the network, fuels
fuel costs for the biomass boiler and the GCHP unit, the costs for
and system component, the air temperature and humidity, as well as the
auxiliary power from the grid, and the costs for ash disposal and economic and environmental parameters.
cleaning:
Decision variables are the values that are finally obtained by opti­
( )
⎛ ∑ ⎞ mization. The decision variables that can be chosen by designers in this
∫ c i,f * ṁ f ,i H f ,i + c el *P el,fromgrid system are the air ratio of the biomass boiler λ, the connection variant of
⎜ i=boi,gchp ⎟
OPEX year
var =
⎜
⎝
⎟dt
⎠ the heat pump v, the target exhaust gas temperature T ex , the heat pump
∑
+c ash&cleaning * Q˙ i (12) supply temperature T hp , the selected refrigerant of the heat pump r ef ,
i=boi,gchp and the binary decision variable b to represent whether to install a
GCHP for self-power supply. They are declared and bounded. The final
Where c i,f , c el , c ash&cleaning represent the energy specific costs of fuel, results are the combination of these variables, which provide the spec­
electricity, ash disposal and cleaning, respectively. ifications for the final design of the integrated system. A combination of
different decision variables is defined as a scenario. An overview of the
• Environmental indicators required parameters and the decision variables can be found in Table 1.
After the initialization process, the optimization objectives, the run
To evaluate the environmental impact of the concepts, the energy mode of the optimization procedure, and the constraints of the decision
specific CO2 emission e CO2 is chosen as the indicator for this study. variables should be declared according to the mathematical formulation
(See Section 3.3.2). Here, the run mode can be set to multithreading

( )
∫
ṁ f ,boi *H f ,boi *fCO2 f ,boi + ṁ f ,gchp *H f ,gchp *fCO2 f ,gchp + P elfromgrid *fCO2 el dt
(13)
e CO2 = ∫
Q˙ demand dt

Where the fCO2 i,f denotes the CO2 emission factors for the different
fuels (biomass boiler and gasifier CHP) and fCO2 el represents the CO2
emission factor for electricity from the public power grid.
3.3. Optimization framework
This section presents the optimization framework. The optimization
aims to find the best combination of the variable decision variables to
simultaneously minimize the levelized cost of energy production and
specific CO2 emission, while still improving system efficiency to a
mode to simultaneously use multiple cores of the computer to speed up
the optimization process.
To start up the optimization procedure, a certain number of scenarios
should be initialized based on the boundaries of the decision variables.
These scenarios are referred to as the initial population of the genetic
algorithm. The system simulation model will be called based on the
defined scenarios and the initialized components. After that, the
required energy performances, as well as the required size of various
components, will be solved based on the simulation model. Based on the
technical results, the various evaluation indicators can be determined

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Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Fig. 4. Hydraulic circuit diagram of the studied biomass heating network.

and given as fitness evaluation criteria for the genetic algorithm.
Depending on the evaluation results, the genetic algorithm will generate
new scenarios with higher fitness. The newly generated scenarios will be
applied as a new population as input for the next iteration, which will
continue until the termination condition is met, e.g., the maximum
number of evolutionary generations. At the end of the optimization, the
set of Pareto optimal solutions will be displayed, and the corresponding
optimal solutions will be output.
3.3.2. Mathematical formulation
The general mathematical formulation of this optimization problem
is proposed as follows:
min{f 1 (→
x ), f 2 (→
x )}
x ∑
s.t. g(→
x)=0
for the entire system, implemented by the simulation model presented in
Section 3.1. This constraint declares the system’s technical requirements
and ensures that the demand of the network is met.
For multi-objective optimization (MOO) problems, it may be prob­
lematic to find a single solution that optimizes each objective simulta­
neously, since the economic and environmental objective functions may
conflict with each other. To solve this multi-objective optimization
problem, the weighted sum method [66,67] is applied, which provides a
set of optimal points as Pareto solutions. Here, the Pareto solutions
indicate a trade-off between the optimum of the two objectives, i.e., the
trade-off between economics and environmental impact. Using the
weighted sum method, the objective can be reformulated as a composite
objective function:
min ws = αi f̂i (→
x)
x
i=1,2

( ) ∑
→
x = vector v, b , λ, T ex , T hp , r ef . αi = 1 ∀ αi ≥ 0 (15)
i=1,2

v, b ∈ {0, 1} Where αi is the selected non-negative scalar weight of each single

{ } objective function. The summary of all weights should be equal to 1.
xi ∈ [lbi , ubi ] ∀ xi ∈ λ, T ex , T hp
Here the f̂ (→
x ) represents the normalized objective. The normalization
i
functions are as follows:
ref . ∈ {0, 1, ⋯, m} (14)
f (→ x ) − f ut
Where f 1 (→
x ) and f 2 (→
x ) are objective functions. In this study, they f̂i (→
x ) = i na i
∀ i = 1, 2 (16)
f i − f ut
are the evaluation indicators of the system. For example, these two i

objective functions can be chosen as the economic indicator lcoe and the
environmental indicator e CO2 , respectively. And → x indicates the vector
( )
of the decision variables vector v, b , λ, T ex , T hp , r ef . of the optimiza­
tion problem, i.e., the scenario. Among them,v and b are binary vari­
ables representing the connection variant of the heat pump and whether
the GCHP is to be installed, respectively. The other variables, i.e., air
ratio λ, the target exhaust gas temperature T ex and the heat pump
supply temperature T hp are the continuous variables that can vary be­
tween the corresponding lower boundary lb and the upper boundary ub,
respectively. And the variable r ef . is an integer variable representing the
selected refrigerant among the optional m refrigerants. The equivalence
constraint g(→x ) = 0 represents the mass and energy balance constraint
Where f ut
i and f i
na
represent the utopia points and pseudo nadir
points of the i corresponded f i (x).
A utopia point is a point in the objective space where the objective
function reaches its optimal value, which represents the approximate
minimum value of the corresponding indicator. And a pseudo-nadir
point is a point in the space of the objective where it reaches its
pseudo-worst value, which is the approximate maximum value of the
indicator [68]. These points are employed as anchor points [69] for the
normalization. In this study, these anchor points are defined as the
extreme points at αi = 0, which corresponds to the individual minimum
of each objective f i (→
x ). The determination of these points as well as the
implementation of the genetic algorithm is shown in Fig. D1 and

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Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Table 2 4.2. Input data specification

Element compositions of chosen fuel for boiler and GCHP.
Parameter Wood chips for Wood pellets for Unit To implement the proposed concept, the studied case will be
boiler GCHP upgraded to a biomass heating network with an integrated heat pump
Total water content 25.8 10 Ma% wet and possibly a gasification CHP, as described in Section 2. For com­
Higher heating value 20.4 19.73 kJ/kg parison purposes, the conventional renovation concept with only a new
dry biomass boiler is considered as the baseline case. To initialize the opti­
Lower heating value 19.1 18.35 kJ/kg mization, various initialization parameters, as well as the demand and
dry
Ash content 0.7 1.0 Ma% dry
temperatures of the network, and the range of the decision variables, are
Total chlorine 0.009 0.009 Ma% dry required as inputs of the framework, as described in Section 3.3.1.
content
Carbon 50.9 50.0 Ma% dry 4.2.1. Parameter setting
Hydrogen 6.3 6.3 Ma% dry
In this case study, it is assumed that the future heating load, ambient
Nitrogen 0.24 0.10 Ma% dry
Total sulfur content 0.010 0.025 Ma% dry temperature, and humidity will remain at the same hourly average
Oxygen 41.8 42.57 Ma% dry values as in the historical years. To meet the temperature requirements
of consumers, it is also assumed that the supply and return temperatures
of the network will maintain historical averages.
Table 3 Besides, two devices consume biomass fuel in the studied concepts:
Thresholds of the decision variables for this study. the biomass boiler and the gasifier CHP. The biomass boiler has lower
requirements regarding fuel quality. Considering that the supply chain
Type Decision Thresholds Precision/ Mapping Unit
variable of biomass fuel has geographical limitations, this paper assumes that the
fuel composition of this biomass heat network remains the same as that
Continuous λ 1.2: 2.7 0.1 –
25: 50 0.1 ◦
C
used in previous years. The biomass gasifier CHP has specific re­
T ex
T hp 65: 90 0.1 ◦
C quirements concerning the fuel: Its water content should be lower than
Discrete v {0, 1} {flue gas-side, network- – 20 %, and the ash content should be as low as possible. The optimum
side} fuel water content for the gasification process is about 10 % [70].
{0, 1} {without integrated GCHP,
b –
Therefore, only wood pellets or dried and low-bark forest chips are
with integrated GCHP}
r ef {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, {R134a, R600a, R236fa, – suitable as input products. For this case study, the standard wood pellet
5} R717, R1234yf, R290} from the data bank of Wdesign [71] is selected. The elemental compo­
sition of the two fuels is shown in Table 2.
As system pre-configuration, it is assumed that the air preheater is
explained in Appendix D. installed in the heating plant before the economizer. The flue gas
emissions of CO and NOx follow the limit values of the 44th German
4. Case study Federal Immission Control Ordinance (BlmSchV) with maximum values
of 220 mg/m3i.N.dr and 200 mg/m3i.N.dr (based on the volume of dry gas
To better illustrate the proposed method, the simulation–optimiza­ in standard condition), respectively [72], with a reference O2 content of
tion framework is exemplarily applied to an anonymized biomass 11 %vol. The set point of flue gas temperature from the biomass boiler is
heating network in Germany. In this section, the investigated case, the 180 ◦ C. There is a temperature reduction of 20 K after the air preheater.
necessary input data, and the assumptions for optimization are The flue gas enters the condenser at a temperature of 60 ◦ C after cooling
presented. by the economizer.
The investment costs, as well as the operating cost factor of boiler,
4.1. Case description heat exchangers and heat pumps, were estimated according to [29],
while the costs of gasifier cogeneration units were calculated by fitting
This case studied a typical biomass heating network with high return the prices provided by the 21 equipment manufacturers listed in [73].
temperatures that have been in operation for over 25 years. The heating The investment functions for each component are shown in Table E1 in
network is equipped with a boiler with a nominal output of 3 MW, which Appendix E. The fuel prices for wood chips used in this case are esti­
was designed for about 300 households. To compensate for fluctuations mated by the report on wood chip prices in 2021 in [74], which varied
in boiler output, a 40 m3 buffer heat storage was employed in the depending on the fuel water content. The price of pellets for GCHP is
network. The hydraulic circuit of the studied network can be found in assumed to be 48.3 €/MWh [75]. The prices for calculating the variable
Fig. 4. The average annual heat demand of the network from July 2016 operating costs can be found in Table E2 in Appendix E. The environ­
to June 2019 was 7059 MWh, with a peak load of 2.14 MW. The annual mental parameters fCO2 for wood chips, pellets employed in this study
average supply and return temperatures of the network were 89.1 and are referenced in the report of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs
56.2 ◦ C, where a thermostatic control strategy was implemented. The and Energy in 2019 [76]. And the environmental parameters for elec­
network’s supply temperature was set at a constant value throughout the tricity mix are referred to the Federal Environmental Agency of Ger­
year, as was the return temperature. This was achieved by precise many [77]. The values are listed in Table E3 in Appendix E.
control of the pumps. The average hourly and daily operating data,
including heating load, the weather data and network temperatures, can 4.2.2. Optimization configuration
be found in Fig. E1 in Appendix E. This study considers both types of connections for heat pump evap­
Due to the aging of the boiler and the changing demand of the heat orators. The two connection concepts are adopted as binary variables,
network, the boiler should be modified with a reduced nominal capacity, where v = 0 stands for the flue gas-side concept and v = 1 stands for the
while the networks were designed for a lifespan up to 50 years. Thus, network-side concept. If a gasifier CHP is to be integrated into the sys­
this biomass network allows the implementation of the proposed con­ tem (b = 1), the heat pump power supply will be primarily derived from
cepts through the presented framework. self-generated electricity from the unit. Otherwise, the power supply
will be switched to the local public grid. The optional decision variable
for the boiler design is the air ratio λ for combustion, which ranges from
1.2 to 2.7 [78,79].

11
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

condensation temperature; and the choice of refrigerant, which impacts

Fig. 5. Pareto optimal solutions of the studied case.
The thermodynamic design of the heat pump depends mainly on the
target exhaust gas temperature T ex , which affects the evaporation
temperature; the heat pump supply temperature T hp , which affects the
the performance of the heat pump. In this study case, the threshold of the
target exhaust gas temperature is set between 25 ◦ C and 50 ◦ C by
considering the room temperature and the dew point temperature of the
flue gas, and the heat pump heating temperature is set between 65 ◦ C
and 90 ◦ C by considering the heat network constraints [29,58] and
temperature requirements, with a precision of 0.1 K. For the refrigerant
selection, a preliminary analysis of the properties of the different re­
frigerants, especially their evaporating temperatures at ambient pres­
sure and critical points, was carried out. Finally, the refrigerants selected
for the optimization in this study case are the most commonly used
refrigerant R134a [80], the refrigerants R717 and R236fa used in the
two real-world cases studied in [57], and the refrigerants R290, R600a,
and R1234yf recommended in [81] with low GWP. Table 3 shows the
ranges for these decision variables as well as an overview of the mapping
and precision.
For the parameter configuration of the optimization algorithm, the
run mode is set to multi-threading optimization to accelerate the
computation. The population size of the genetic algorithm is set to 50,
and the maximum iteration number of generations is 100. The non-
negative scalar weight α1 varies in equal intervals from 0 to 1, with a
granularity of 0.1.

Table 4
Optimal combinations of the decision variables of the Pareto solutions.
Alpha 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

HP integration Flue gas- Flue gas- Flue gas- Flue gas- Flue gas- Flue gas- Network- Network- Network- Flue gas- Flue gas-
side side side side side side side side side side side
install GCHP Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No
air ratio 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2 2.1 2.1 2.1 1.2 1.2
exhaust gas 37.3 42.5 44.8 48.5 49.5 49.8 50.0 50.0 50.0 49.9 50.0
temperature (◦ C)
HP supply 65.0 65.4 65.2 65.1 65.3 66.3 70.1 67.6 69.5 66.1 65.1
temperature (◦ C)
refrigerant R717 R600a R717 R600a R717 R717 R236fa R134a R717 R236fa R134a

Fig. 6. Comparison of the technical, economic, and environmental evaluation indicators of the selected scenarios(upper: overall system efficiency, middle: levelized
costs of heat production, bottom: specific CO2 emission).

12
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Fig. 7. Structures of the energy expenditures and energy supplies of the four selected scenarios.

scenario has a clear economic advantage over the baseline scenario as

Table 5
well as the other optimized scenarios. Its lcoe turns out to be 2.67
Nominal capacities of different components.
€/MWh lower than that of the baseline scenario while its specific CO2
Capacities Baseline Min. costs Trade-off Min. emission Unit emissions remain approximately equal to those of the baseline scenario.
BIO BOI 2140 1970 1941 1819 kWth In the minimal emission scenario, biomass CHP can play a beneficial
AP 0 20 20 19 kWth role in reducing emissions. Compared to the minimal cost scenario and
COND 0 83 84 152 kWth
the baseline scenario, the minimal emission scenario reduces CO2
ECO 0 72 71 67 kWth
HP 0 98 98 188 kWth emissions by about 3.0 g/kWh, which corresponds to a reduction of 13.4
GCHP 0 0 16 41 kWel %. However, heat production costs lcoe increase significantly, even
higher than in the baseline scenario. The lcoe in this scenario increases
by 1.45 €/MWh and 4.15 €/MWh compared to the baseline and minimal
5. Results and discussions cost scenarios, respectively. In this situation, the optimal exhaust gas
temperature is about 37.3 ◦ C, and the chosen refrigerant is R717.
5.1. Optimization results As a trade-off option, the sum of the two normalized objective
functions with the same weight can be applied as the final objective
Fig. 5 shows the Pareto optimization results based on the framework function. As we can see from the figure, this alternative option is
proposed in this paper, where each point on the curve represents the significantly favorable to the baseline scenario in terms of both eco­
optimal solution for different values of the non-negative scalar weight nomic and environmental indicators. Fig. 5 shows, meanwhile, that the
α1 . The combinations of the decision variables in the set of Pareto so­ integration of GCHP remains favorable under this scenario. However,
lutions, which correspond to different α1 values, are also displayed in the optimal exhaust gas temperature increases to 49.8 ◦ C, and the heat
Table 4. Since some of the α1 corresponding optimization results are too pump heating temperature is slightly higher than the minimal emission
similar, and this leads to the overlap of some points in the figure. For a solution, which is also equipped with a GCHP.
detailed analysis, three scenarios are selected among these results and It is also notable that the flue gas side of the heat pump integration
compared with the result of the baseline scenario, which is as also dis­ concept is recommended for all of the three solutions discussed here and
played in Fig. 5. Where the minimal cost scenario (green dot) represents that the air ratio remains at 1.2. A detailed techno-economic analysis of
the scenario in which only economic indicators are chosen as the the selected solutions is conducted in Section 5.2.
optimal design target, corresponding to α1 = 1. While the minimal
emission scenario (cyan dot) represents the scenario in which only
environmental indicators are chosen as the design target, corresponding 5.2. Techno-economic and environmental analysis
to α1 = 0. And the trade-off scenario (blue dot) represents the scenario
where both economic and environmental indicators are chosen as the Fig. 6 outlines the evaluation indicators for the four selected sce­
design target with equal weights, corresponding to α1 = 0.5. These narios from technical, economic, and environmental perspectives,
scenarios are highlighted in Fig. 5, respectively. including overall system efficiency, levelized heat production costs, and
As can be seen in Table 4, the integration of the GCHP unit is not specific CO2 emissions. The graph indicates that the baseline scenario is
recommended in the minimal cost scenario, where only economic in­ not only inferior in terms of economic and environmental benefits
dicators are considered as the optimization objective. In this case, the compared to the other scenarios, but also in terms of lower energy ef­
target exhaust gas temperature is at the maximum of its allowed range, ficiency. Compared to the baseline scenario, the minimal cost scenario
since the heat pump size gets smaller and the COP value increases with
increasing exhaust gas temperature. From Fig. 5, we can see that this

13
Y. Chen et al.
Fig. 8. Cost structures of the four scenarios (inner: CAPEX vs OPEX, outer: costs from various compositions).
and the trade-off scenario are both about 10 %-points3 more energy-
efficient, and the minimal emission scenario has an energy improve­
ment of about 13 %-points. A detailed analysis of the technical, eco­
nomic, and environmental aspects is presented below:
5.2.1. Technical analysis
For a more in-depth technical analysis of each scenario, the system
energy expenditure and energy supply for each scenario are presented in
Fig. 7, while Table 5 shows the rated installed capacity of the main
components in each scenario. As can be seen from the figure, the fuel
consumption for heating in the baseline scenario is entirely provided by
wood chips, which consume about 8900 MWh/a. The heat demand of
the network of 7059 MWh/a is only provided by the biomass boiler. For
this scenario, the low consumption to output ratio leads to a low system
energy efficiency. To guarantee the heating performance over the year,
the biomass boiler should have an installed capacity of 2140 kWth .
3
Absolute difference in energy efficiency.
14
Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
Due to the benefits of the heat pump, the system efficiency in the
minimal cost scenario is increased, and its fuel consumption was
reduced by 1080 MWh/a, which is 12.2 % of the consumption in the
baseline scenario. In this scenario, the heat pump expends 59 MWh of
electricity while providing 363 MWh of heat demand, accounting for
5.2 % of the total demand and an annual COP of 6.15. The main reason
for such a high heat pump efficiency is its low difference between
evaporation and condensation temperatures, which is only 15 ◦ C, as
shown in Table 4. In addition to the heat pump, the economizer can
provide a part of the heating load, which contributes about 3.5 % of the
total demand. To achieve the target heat recovery rate, the required
nominal capacity of the heat pump is 98 kWth , combined with a flue gas
condenser with 84 kWth , and an economizer with 73 kWth . As a result of
the contribution of the heat recovery components, the required nominal
boiler capacity can be reduced from 2140 kWth . to 1970 kWth .
In the trade-off scenario, the energy input of the system changes to
wood chips and biomass pellets, since the system is equipped with a
gasifier cogeneration unit, and the electricity for the heat pump is ob­
tained completely from self-sufficient production. Since the GCHP also
Y. Chen et al.
Fig. 9. Analysis of CO2 emission in various scenarios.
provides part of the heat, it further reduces the boiler fuel consumption
and heat output. The boiler fuel consumption was reduced to 7603
MWh/a, corresponding to 86 % of the baseline scenario. At the same
time, the required nominal capacity of the biomass boiler is also further
reduced to 1941 kWth due to the reduction in the share of heat required
from the boiler. The consumption of biomass pellets for GCHP is 227
MWh in this variant, which corresponds to 3 % of the total energy
consumption. On the supply side, the heating supply of the heat pump
and the economizer remain unchanged compared to the minimal cost
scenario. The GCHP unit contributes about 2 % of the heat production.
The nominal electrical power of the GCHP amounts to 16 kWel , which
needs to be sufficient to cover the electrical power demand of the heat
pump.
For the last option, the minimal emission scenario, which is also
equipped with a GCHP unit, the target exhaust gas temperature is
reduced from about 50 ◦ C to 37 ◦ C in order to recover even more waste
heat in the flue gas. As a result, the required nominal capacity of the flue
gas condenser and heat pump doubles as the working temperature dif­
ference of the heat pump increases. Correspondingly, the rated electrical
power of the GCHP increases to 41 kWel . With the increased amount of
recovered heat, the overall system efficiency is also effectively
improved. In this case, the boiler heating capacity decreases further to
1819 kWth , due to the increase in the contribution of other system
components. In terms of energy consumption and supply, the boiler fuel
consumption and heating supply share are also further diminished. The
wood chip consumption of the biomass boiler is reduced to 7089 MWh,
which accounts for a 20 % reduction compared to the baseline scenario.
In contrast, the biomass pellets consumption for the GCHP unit increases
to 510 MWh, representing 7 % of the total energy consumption. The
boiler energy supply is correspondingly reduced to 83 % of the total
annual load, while the heat pump supply is increased to almost 10 % due
to the recovery of the waste heat at low temperatures. The heat pump
COP decreases to 3.3 in this scenario, due to the higher temperature
difference between evaporation and condensation compared to the
other two scenarios. And the heat supply from the cogeneration unit
increases to 298 MWh, or 4.2 % of the total demand, due to the increase
15
Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
in electricity supply for the heat pump.
From the analysis of the results above, it can be observed that the
share of heat supplied by the biomass boiler decreases from left to right
in the four scenarios mentioned above. The change in system efficiency
is inversely correlated with this. In general, the integration of heat
pumps can effectively improve overall system efficiency and reduce the
energy consumption of the entire system. By comparing the minimal
cost scenario and the trade-off scenario, it can be found that the further
integration of the biomass boiler has little effect on system efficiency,
when the heat pump operating temperatures remain constant. When we
compare the minimal emission scenario with other scenarios, it can be
observed that the amount of wood chip fuel required by the boiler is
further reduced, since more heat is recovered due to the lower exhaust
gas temperature. However, the rated capacity and biomass pellets de­
mand of the GCHP unit in the minimal emission scenario improve as the
heat pump electricity demand grows. This results result in higher in­
vestment and operating costs of the system, and makes the economic
feasibility of this scenario questionable. In the following, a detailed
economic analysis of the system is presented.
5.2.2. Economic analysis
Fig. 8 shows the cost structure of the four scenarios, where the inner
ring on the top shows the share of CAPEX and OPEX in the cost structure,
and the outer ring illustrates the detailed percentages of various com­
ponents. CAPEX includes the capital costs of the different system com­
ponents, including biomass boilers, heat exchangers, heat pumps, and
GCHP, while OPEX consists of the energy purchase costs plus cleaning
and maintenance costs. The absolute values of the total annualized costs
and levelized costs for each component are shown in the tree diagram
below.
It can be noticed from the graph that the capital cost share is
significantly smaller than the operating cost for all four scenarios. The
baseline scenario has the lowest capital cost share of 10.7 %, with an
absolute value of about 40 k€/a. Due to the lowest system efficiency, this
scenario has higher fuel consumption and the highest operating cost
among all the scenarios at 333 k€/a. Among these costs, 266.5 k€/a for
Y. Chen et al.
biomass fuel accounts for the largest share of 71.5 % of the total cost.
With the integration of the heat pump and heat exchangers, the
capital cost of the minimal cost scenario increases to 46 k€/a, repre­
senting 13.0 % of the total annualized cost. The costs of the biomass
boiler decreased slightly in absolute terms, but its share remained the
same, while the rest of the investment came from the heat recovery
equipment, of which the flue gas condenser and the heat pump
accounted for 0.8 % and 0.9 % of the total costs, respectively. Benefiting
from the heat recovery in the exhaust gas, the operating costs in this
scenario are reduced to 308 k€/a. The share of biomass fuel for the boiler
decreases from 71.5 % to 66.1 %. The expenditure on electricity for the
heat pump amounts to 10.4 k€/a, with a share of 3 % of the total.
In the trade-off scenario, the capital cost increases to 55.3 k€/a
because of the integration of the GCHP, which results in 20 % more than
the minimal cost scenario. The capital cost of the GCHP takes up 2.7 % of
the total annualized costs, and its relative share of the total investment
cost is 15.1 %. On the other hand, the share of the biomass boiler in the
total cost is reduced to 10.2 %, while the shares of the flue gas condenser
and heat pump remain unchanged compared to the minimal cost sce­
nario, at 0.8 % and 0.9 %, respectively. The annual operating costs of
this scenario are also slightly increased compared to the minimal cost
scenario, reaching 311 k€/a. The expenditure on fuel for the biomass
boiler is 229 k€/a, representing 62.7 % of the total costs with a slight
decrease. The expenditure on biomass pellets for the GCHP is 10.9 k€/a,
which is similar to the electricity expenditure for the heat pump in the
minimal cost scenario. In addition, the fixed operating costs, i.e., the
O&M costs for the system components, increase from 6.8 % in the
minimal cost scenario to 8.6 % in the trade-off scenario, which is pri­
marily attributed to the maintenance of the GCHP.
Among all these scenarios, the minimal emission scenario has the
highest capital cost of 17.9 % of the total cost. Due to the increase in the
rated capacity required for the integrated system components, the
annualized capital cost of this scenario increases to 68.6 k€/a, 50 %
more than that of the minimal cost scenario. This includes 20.7 k€/a for
the GCHP, which represents 30 % of the total investment cost, and more
than half of the investment cost of the biomass boiler. The flue gas
condenser and heat pump investment also increases to 3.98 k€/a and
6.16 k€/a, respectively, accounting for 1.0 % and 1.6 % of the total costs,
respectively. Meanwhile, the operating costs in this scenario also in­
crease compared to the trade-off scenario. The fuel cost increases with
the percentage of biomass pellets used due to the higher price compared
to wood chips. Compared to the trade-off scenario, the biomass pellet
consumption for GCHP increases approximately 2.5 times, whose share
increases from 3.0 % to 6.4 % of the total cost. On the whole, this sce­
nario is the most economically disadvantageous one because of its un­
favorable capital costs and comparatively high operating costs.
5.2.3. Environmental analysis
For a comprehensive system analysis, besides technical and eco­
nomic feasibility, the environmental performance also has to be
considered. First, it can be inferred from the previous analysis that the
integration of heat pumps and heat exchangers alone cannot contribute
to the reduction of the carbon emission of the system. As shown in Fig. 9,
all of the CO2 emissions caused by heat production in the baseline sce­
nario originate from the combustion of wood chips. Despite the rela­
tively low carbon emission factor of wood chips, the baseline scenario
has the highest total carbon emissions because of its higher energy
consumption (as seen in Fig. 7). In the minimal cost scenario, although
the wood chip consumption is reduced by 1080MWh, an additional
363MWh of electricity is consumed for driving the heat pump. Due to
the higher carbon emission factor of 366 gCO2/kWh of electricity from
the public grid, its total carbon emissions remain almost the same as the
baseline.
In contrast, in the minimal emission scenario, the system’s economic
feasibility decreases as the GCHP is integrated (see Fig. 6), but the
overall system emissions also decrease significantly. Compared to the
16
Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922
baseline scenario, this scenario reduces CO2 emissions by 13.4 %, yet the
levelized costs of heat become even higher than the baseline scenario,
which significantly depresses the appeal of the proposed concepts. As a
trade-off, the target exhaust gas temperature is set higher to reduce the
required capacity of the heat pump and GCHP, which is achieved at the
expense of high efficiency to guarantee both low cost and low emissions.
The trade-off scenario results in an 11 % reduction of CO2 emissions
compared to the baseline solution, while also ensuring the affordability
of the system. As can be seen in Fig. 6 and Fig. 9, although the shares of
biomass pellets in the total energy consumption in the trade-off and
minimal emission scenarios are much higher than the share of electricity
consumption in the minimal cost scenario, the emission from the
biomass pellets is ultimately much lower. Because of the low emission
factor of biomass pellets, the carbon emissions of electricity required for
the heat pump diminish significantly, and therefore the overall carbon
emissions of the system decrease. Thus, the integration of the GCHP
allows for lower CO2 equivalent emissions at the expense of certain
affordability, while ensuring a higher system energy efficiency in the
biomass heating network.
Based on the analysis of the above three aspects, it can be concluded
that the design approach of the integrated system enables a significant
increase in system efficiency while meeting the same demand, which
lowers primary energy consumption. Through the simulation–optim­
ization framework proposed in this paper, decision-makers can adopt
the appropriate system design solutions according to their specific re­
quirements. In the case study of this paper, the integration of a GCHP for
self-power generation is not recommended for the minimal cost sce­
nario, since the high investment and maintenance costs of the GCHP unit
can jeopardize the economics of the system. However, the GCHP unit
can effectively supply electricity for heat pumps and reduce the CO2
emissions of the overall system. As a trade-off, the target exhaust gas
temperature can be adjusted to a higher value, which reduces the
required heat pump capacity and the corresponding GCHP capacity,
thus reducing the investment cost of the system. This trade-off scenario
is recommended to achieve a balance between economic and emission
goals, which enables the realization of an optimal system from techno-
economic and environmental aspects.
6. Conclusions
This study proposes a simulation-based multi-objective optimization
framework for the design of a biomass heating network with an inte­
grated heat pump. The framework combines a detailed simulation model
with the genetic algorithm. It allows optimal integration of the heat
pump and its self-power supply units, taking into account the thermo­
dynamic processes and the interactions between the system compo­
nents, as well as the techno-economic performance and the
environmental impacts.
To test the capabilities of the proposed optimization framework, an
existing biomass heat network located in Germany, which has to be
renovated due to its long service life and inefficient operation, was
investigated as a case study. By varying the weights of the objective
functions, a set of Pareto optimal solutions and their corresponding
combinations of decision variables were obtained. Among these opti­
mization results, three feasible scenarios were investigated in detail: the
minimal cost scenario, the minimal emission scenario, and the trade-off
scenario. The detailed analysis of these scenarios showed that:
• The integration of heat pumps can effectively improve the overall
system efficiency and bring economic benefits to the system. When
environmental indicators are not considered, the exhaust gas tem­
perature should be as high as possible in the range below the gas dew
point temperature.
• The further integration of GCHP can effectively reduce the equiva­
lent CO2 emissions of the entire system. However, it was not rec­
ommended based on the employed prices, when only economic
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

indicators are considered as the optimization objective, due to its
high initial capital costs at minimal capacities.
• When both economic and emission targets of the system need to be
satisfied, a trade-off between these two indicators is suggested. This
option ensures efficiency gains while simultaneously reducing heat
costs and equivalent CO2 emissions of the system.
In general, this paper demonstrates that a biomass heating network
with an integrated heat pump can effectively utilize the limited biomass
resources and improve its competitiveness. Through the optimization
design, it is possible to ensure the effective utilization of biomass re­
sources while satisfying the economic and environmental compatibility
of the system. The proposed simulation–optimization framework allows
decision-makers to achieve an optimal system design under the given
constraints and the chosen objectives. Depending on the optimization
objectives, the optimal system configuration, as well as the best com­
bination of design parameters for the system components, can be
determined.
Due to the increased number of system components considered here,
the complexity of the system also increases dramatically. Future
research could focus on further investigation of general operation modes
of system equipment to ensure safer and more economical operation of
the system. In addition, the detailed analysis also shows that the fuel and
electricity prices and emission factors have a significant impact on the
optimization results. The impacts of various fuel and electricity sources
and their prices on the optimization results could also be an interesting
area for future research.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yusheng Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation,
Software, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization, Writing – orig­
inal draft, Writing – review & editing, Project administration. Tong
Guo: Data curation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Josef
Kainz: Conceptualization, Supervision, Resources, Writing – review &
editing. Martin Kriegel: Supervision. Matthias Gaderer: Supervision,
Funding acquisition, Project administration.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
We gratefully acknowledge the support and funding of the project by
the Agency of Renewable Resources and the Federal Ministry of Food
and Agriculture, Germany, promotional reference 22409517.

Appendix

Appendix A. . Heat pump integration variants

Fig. A1. Simplified schemes of heat pump integration variants: (Left: evaporator connected to flue gas condenser, Right: evaporator connected to with the mains
return.) (Top: Feeding into the unheated mains return, Middel: Feeding into the preheated mains return, Bottom: Feeding into the mains feed flow.).

See Fig. A1.

17
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Appendix B. Mathematical formulation of the GCHP model

General formulas for calculating of electrical efficiency ξel and thermal efficiency ξth of a gas engine CHP, based on a variety of product data from
gas engine CHP manufacturers [62]:
( ( ) )
ξel = 0.27 + 0.1089*(z − 0.33) + 0.0255* log P el,n − log(50) (17)
( ( ) ) ( )
ξth = 0.61 − 0.0746*(z − 0.33) − 0.0255* log P el,n − log(50) − 0.002*(T − 45) − 0.00175* T − 90
(18)
return supply

Where P el,n is the nominal electrical capacity of the CHP. T return and T supply represent the return and supply water temperatures through the CHP,
respectively. And z is the modulation of the cogeneration, which is defined as:
P el
z= (19)
P el,n

With these equations,the power to heat ratio of the cogeneration σ can be determined:
ξel ( )
σ= = f P el,n , z (20)
ξth
In this paper, the power output of the GCHP P el,gchp should be decided by the simulated power demand of the heat pump, and therefore be given as
an input parameter in this GCHP module. The power to heat ratio σ then allows the calculation of its thermal output Q˙ th,gchp :
P el,gchp
Q˙ th,gchp = (21)
σ
The overall efficiency of the GCHP ξgchp would be the product of the gas conversion efficiency and the total efficiency of biogas engine CHP:
ξgchp = ξgasifier *(ξel + ξth ) (22)

With the obtained values P el,gchp , Q˙ th,gchp , ξgchp , the fuel demand of the GCHP ṁ f,gchp can now be determined by:
( )
Q˙ th,gchp + P el,gchp
(23)
ṁ f ,gchp =
ξgchp *H fuel,gchp

Appendix C. . Overview of the extened simulation model

See Fig. C1.

Fig. C1. Overview of the extended simulation model.

18
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

Appendix D. . Flowsheet of the optimization procedure

Fig. D1 shows the detailed procedure of the optimization algorithm. To solve the optimization problem above, the first step is to calculate the
anchor points by solving the optimization of each single objective. To start the optimization, n scenarios that consists of the decision variables will be
initialized inside the constraint space. Starting with α1 = 0, the utopia points the unnormalized objective f 1 (→ x ) and the and nadir points of points the
unnormalized objective f (→2 x ) are first determined, where n is the initial population size for the genetic algorithm optimization. Next, with α = 1,
1
x ) and the nadir points of points the unnormalized objective f 1 (→
the utopia points the unnormalized objective f 2 (→ x ) are also calculated. In this
optimization issue, the two “utopia” points represent the minimum values of the economic and environmental indicators, while the two “ nadir ”
points represent the maximum values of these two indicators, respectively. Once the anchor points are calculated, the objective function is converted
to the normalized formula M2. With α1 varying between 0 and 1, the set of the Pareto solutions can be computed. The optimization with a specific α1
can be summarized as follows:

1. Initialization: Generate n scenarios as the initial population, each variable represents a gene, and each scenario represents a chromosome, i.e.,
vector of genes.
2. Simulation: Call the initialized simulation model
3. Fitness: Calculate the economic and environmental indicators and evaluate the normalized objective f̂ (→ x) i
4. Evolution:
a. Ranking: Sort all fitness results of the normalized objective
b. Selection: Select several scenarios as parent chromosomes from the population based on the sorting results
c. Crossover: crossover the parents randomly to generate new scenarios as children (a new combination of the decision variables)

Fig. D1. Flowsheet of the optimization algorithm.

19
Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

d. Mutation: Mutate new children with a mutation probability at each position in the chromosome.
5. Test:

If the Stop criterion is met:

Stop: return the best results and the corresponding scenario, and plot the results.
Else:
enerate a new population: replace parent chromosomes with the new generated children chromosomes, and go to Step 2.

Appendix E. Input parameters for the simulation

See Fig. E1 and Tables E1–E3.

Fig. E1. Input data for case study: historic heating load, weather data and network temperatures of the investigated biomass heating network.

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Y. Chen et al. Applied Energy 326 (2022) 119922

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